Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Could it be love, or a matter of being too tried to care?

During our first couple of weeks here in VA I captured this picture of Flash and his cousin Maria enjoying a little snooze together. As many of our blog friends know Flash is not what you would call "friend oriented." Sure he likes his brother and sister just fine, but even that took months. It usually takes him a long time to warm up to dogs. After the initial meeting he will enforce a personal bubble boundary that is quite large in diameter. He'll be around the other dogs, but at a distance. As the weeks pass the bubble starts getting a little smaller, but I think it took a month before he would even let Alven, or Dottie sit next to him. Then it took another few weeks, or so, for him to let them share his doggy bed. The last big hurdle was for Flash to let Alven, or Dottie give him kisses on his face, or do any kind of face smelling (Flash is very anti anything in his face area).

All the humans were aware of Flash's strict personal bubble rules and were not expecting any kind of doggy bonding for a while when it came to Mr. Grumps. This is why I was so surprised when I came upon this scene during our second week here. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that I questioned my eye sight and my sanity when I first saw them lounging together. Could it be that Mr. Flash was actually coming out of his shell and making friends so quickly? Had Dottie and Alven opened the doors for him and he was now on his way to becoming a social butterfly?? Could there even be a little doggy romance in his future????

I carefully moved towards my camera and took a quick picture as evidence. After the photographic proof was obtained I ran over to Natalia and shoved the camera in her face explaining how Flash was actually making friends and how he and Maria could very possibly be soul mates (opposites do attract you know). Natalia looked at the picture and then at me with a kind smile on her face. She told me that she had actually been in the room and Flash had been snoozing on the corner of the couch as seen in the picture. Maria had been sleeping in the middle of the couch and then decided that she would be more comfortable stretched out and basically cornered Flash against the cushion. He had woken up startled to find himself sandwiched between the cushion and his cousin, but after looking around for a second decided to go back to sleep.

That scenario made much more sense to me, but I wasn't going to be disappointed. Sure, the friendly gesture might have not been his idea, but at least he didn't leap out of his fur in horror when he woke up to find his cousin so close. He could have very easily freaked out, or left, but instead he probably decided his cousin was very comfortable and a good source of body heat. A small step for other dogs, but a huge step for Mr. Grumpers.

4 comments:

if you check the picture carefully, you will notice that he is really cornered. Not a bit of space on but, back or head. The only good thing is that his eyes are not open in horror but sleepy and relax. This is def another Flash. A happier Flash!